They set up a tent at the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, held at Birmingham's Barber Motorsports Park last spring. There, they showed off rivet guns, precision tools and pistons in pieces for assembly, and they invited visitors to try them out by asking, "How fast can you torque an engine?"

Hundreds of people came, and children were fascinated by the high-tech tools.

"People told us they had no idea we did this kind of work in Alabama," said Mike Oatridge, vice president at the plant.

Automotive News writer Lindsay Chappell recounted the story this week while covering an industry conference in Traverse City, Mich., where there has been talk about how hard it is to recruit manufacturing workers.

He said the leadership at Honda's Alabama plant offers a good counter-point to such comments.

Plus, they're thinking not just about the workers they need now, but also the ones they'll need down the road.

"The message to Honda is that people in Alabama -- or probably anywhere else in North America where Honda operates -- do have an interest in manufacturing," Chappell writes. "They just don't have any way of knowing that, at least not until someone shows them what it's really all about."

Honda's Talladega County operation currently produces the Odyssey minivan, Pilot SUV and Acura MDX SUV, and will soon begin producing a new Ridgeline pickup.